Secret Invasion (Disney+)

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watched something good, I talk about it on this show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started. Today. In the show, we are talking about the new Disney Plus series Secret Invasion.

0:44 So I was excited about this show because it seemed like I had the potential to be a bit more grounded, which is kind of what I'm into. I think that when I had Jack Austin on and we talked about all the different Marvel properties, I think this came up. It's a really interesting premise. It's so basically it is that there's an alien race called the Scrolls, and the Scrolls are here on Earth and Samuel Jackson promised to get them a new planet. They're basically like refugees, but it's taken a while and they're starting to get pissed off, and there's a faction of the Scrolls that are like the extremist faction of the Scrolls and they've decided, well, we're just going to take this planet because it's taken too long to get us our own planet. So that's an interesting setup, and the opening sequence I think it's pretty good. You know, definitely plays on kind of like the thing vibe, where you know, you never know if the person you're talking to is or is not a Scroll because they can the key element of the series that they can make themselves appear like anything. They can look like anyone. They can sort of you know, they could be anybody. They could be your best friend, your wife, your brother, or your kid. They can make themselves appear like that, right, So that really sets up a pretty useful device for an espionage spot. I kind of, you know, paranoid thriller type of thing. And I was excited because also it's a big showcase for Sam Jackson. You know, he's front and centering the art. It's like, this is gonna be the Sam Jackson show. Great, I'm in

2:14 and I watched the first half hour and I gotta be honest with you, I turned it off and I was not going to do this episode. And then I went on Twitter and I just typed in Secret Invasion because I was like, am I being too hard on it? And I saw a whole bunch of tweets about the end of the episode, which I will not spoil until the end of this episode, and I said, all right, I'll go back, and I finished it, and I do think the second half of the pilot kind of picks up some steam. What was a real surprise to me though, in the first half of the pilot was that Sam Jackson seemed bored. You know, I have done I have been involved in enough films where I know the actor was kind of just showing up and like, wasn't that into it. And you can sort of tell, like there's some actors where if they're not feeling it for whatever reason, and it might be maybe they're not getting paid enough money, maybe they don't like the script, maybe that particular day something happened, maybe they don't get along with the director or whatever it is. You can kind of tell when they're sort of not that into it, And the first half of this it just seemed like he wasn't that into it. It just seemed like he was sort of like, you know, planning a vacation in his head or something. Like doing his grocery list. Like, Sam is such a great actor, a legitimate, lay stellar actor, and I was so excited for him to have the showcase.

3:34 And I almost wonder if it's like because they have him doing a lot of stuff in the first half that is a bit expositional, and I wonder if maybe that was the issue. It doesn't seem like they've given him again in the first half that really strong emotional kind of material to bite his teeth into, and then in the back half they give him a little bit more of that. So there's a moment where he's sort of interrogating someone that ends up being a Scroll, and you can tell he's like having fun, like he's sort of it's the energy is picking up. It seems like he's he's being playful, but in a scary kind of way. And it's also that particular scene is one of the better scenes of the episode because it has some real moral ambiguity. There's something that Sam Jackson does the end of that scene that's sort of not cool, like he Ben Mendelssohn plays like the good Scroll, like the scroll who's like part of the you know, trying to help out the humans kind of thing, and he's there and he's almost like Sam Jackson's partner in the show, and he tells Sam not to do something, and then Sam does not listen to him, and it really does have a moment of moral ambiguity, and I like, you know, it's also you can understand the motivation of the scrolls. You can understand why they would be upset. Like I like that. I always like when the villain has a motive where you're like, man, I would totally I might do the same thing if I was in the villain position. That's something that works really well in the first Black Panther film. I think it works well here. So

5:04 it has great elements, but I wanted more. I really wanted more from this pilot, you know. I think that the it's so this is there's so much you could do with this, and there's so much opportunity to comment on issues in the real world, and I just felt like it didn't totally get there for me until the ending. I'll wait a second before I spoil it. This is a really good cast. Ben Mendelssohn, Amelia Clark. You know, it's it's well directed, it's well shot, it's well acted. It's an interesting world. Again, a lot of positive elements. But if you look at this which I think it has been well received, I think people are liking it. I couldn't help but have this feeling of like, is this what is good now? Is this what we're sort of happy with? Is something that's like, yeah, it's pretty good, It's like, it's not. I think about I recently rewatched the first Mission Impossible film, and I think the difference between that film and some of the later Mission Impossible films is relevant here. The first Mission Impossible film is very nervy and weird. It's a weird it's it has a real edge to it, and it's it's sort of yeah, it's like left up, it's strange, it's it's not it's not sort of clean um. Where it's later films, there is a generic quality to them, meaning that we're not really like exploring the dark soul of Ethan hunts, right, We're just sort of it's it's fun, it's action. The lines of who's good and who's bad, you know,

6:34 I think are mostly pretty clear. It's not it doesn't have that sort of weird edge to it. You know, if you go back to the First Mission Possible film. A lot of the lines of dialogue are really good, and it has this sort of cynicism to it. I don't know, it just has it feels like it has more on its mind, is what I'm saying. And and I feel like there was such opportunity for that here. And it's not like you can't do that within a genre show. I mean, we just we just saw that with Andor Right and Or very similar situation where you're telling a show it's a genre show, but it has opportunity to comment on real world stuff. And and Or from episode one made choices that you know, you could see those things Ron's mind. And I think the jury is still out on secret Invasion from what I understand. The second episode also ends in a crazy way. And I'm going to get to the spoiler now I've been teasing here in a second. So look, I want to give them the benefit of the down, right, because even Game of Thrones, if you go back to the Game of Thrones pilot, it's kind of slow, like it was. I think I was on the fence where I would watch another episode of Game of Thrones, and the end of that episode of the pilot was so crazy. You were like, all right, I'm gonna watch another episode, and then it really clicked into gear. So you know, I've only seen the first episode. It is entirely possible that this finds its footing in the second episode. That's pretty common, and I think a lot of shows have that situation. It's very difficult to especially the first half of the pilot, just come out of the gate storm and hot

8:07 like that. That's not an easy thing to do. So I am cautiously optimistic, but I would say this is definitely a mixed recommendation. And now I got to talk about what happens at the end of the pilot. So if you haven't seen the pilot, stop listening, or if you haven't seen it but you don't care, if you haven't spoiled, you can keep listening. And if you have seen it, keep listening. Okay, end of the pilot. So we have this sequence which is very reminded me a lot of blowout actually kind of like a big crowd scene. And then Sam Jackson shoots my name is Kobe Smolders. Great name. It's always hard for me to remember exactly Kobe Smolders. Apologies to Kobe Smolders. He has Kobe Smolders, so he shoots her at the end of this pilot and then we obviously it's a scrull that's you know, looking like him that did it. But it's a big choice because the way they set up the pilot, you expect her to be an integral element of the show. Obviously, her character has a long lineage in these Marvel properties. So it's a big choice and it lands. It feels big, and it's it gives Sam something emotional now to play going in episode two, which he kind of didn't really have that much in episode one. So it's promising, you know. I like the choice.

9:26 I also I wonder if it's almost like, you know, Marvel now, it's been going on for so long, I'm sure some of these actors are ready to like do other things. So I wonder if it's like, you know, if you're the Marvel executive, You're like, all right, well, these seven actors are tired of doing Marvel movies. Let's just bring them in the Secret Invasion for an episode to kill them off. I do wonder if that might be part of the calculus there. But yeah, look, I'm definitely gonna watch another episode. I love Sam Jackson. I want to see Sam Jackson fly and be the focus of a series. And I gotta think that it was just that kind of wobbly first half of the pilot, you know. I gotta give him a mull again for that. So I'm hopeful we'll see what episode two is like. I'm very curious to know what you think. Did you enjoy Secret Invasion? Do you think it came out the gate strong? You think you showed up on the fence. You can always reach me at benamore Dan on Twitter, watch The Night on Instagram, watch The Night podcast on TikTok, or you can join on our Facebook group. That is the episode for today. Thank you so much for listening.

10:26 Until next time, Bye bye,